


Darkness in Spring

by russian_blue



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Adolescent Phases, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 11:04:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/russian_blue/pseuds/russian_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One year, Persephone doesn't leave Hades on schedule.  Demeter goes to find out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkness in Spring

She lived for spring, and spring lived for her -- or rather through her. Six lonely months out of the year, she waited, suffering, but as the appointed day drew close, her spirits lifted; the air warmed, the ground softened, until the moment mother and daughter reunited, and the land burst into flower and fertility.

So it was, through the long centuries, as men forgot their proper worship and reduced them to art, memory, mere literary allusion.

Until one year the daughter did not come. Her mother waited, not understanding, and the land waited with her.

Still the maiden of spring stayed below.

When her arrival was a month overdue, her mother went in search of her again. No long wandering this time; she knew exactly where to look. Demeter arrived at the gates of Hades, glared Cerberus into his kennel, and stormed through the underworld to her daughter's throne.

Persephone had always followed mortal fashion with more fervor than Demeter thought necessary. Now she sat in the darkened hall with her already-pale face whitened further, her eyes shadowed with powder, her slender limbs draped in artfully tattered black lace. No, not sat -- drooped. She had never been happy in Hades, but this posture was something new; it looked posed.

"Do you know what day it is?" Demeter snapped.

Persephone waived one hand languidly, as is almost defeated by the weight of the skull and spider rings now clustering on her fingers. "Who cares."

"You're a month late." Demeter stared at her. "You've always bolted for the surface the minute your time was up. I don't understand. Why are you still down here?"

"I like it here," Persephone said, with a mournful, artificial sigh.

Demeter forgot her divine dignity; her jaw dropped. " _What?_ "

"I think it suits me," Persephone added.

"You," Demeter said through her teeth, "are the goddess of spring. What suits you is to spend six months here, and six months above. What has gotten into you? Why this silly clothing, all the makeup, and the nonsense about _liking_ it here IN HADES?!"

"The sun's too bright up there," Persephone said distastefully. "It turns my skin pink and brown. And people are too cheerful. They don't understand the darkness of life."

Demeter groped for something, _anything_ , that could explain this bizarre change in her daughter. "Has Hades been at you?"

"No."

"Eris, then."

" _No_ , mother."

"The Furies? Hecate? The Moirae?"

"The Goths," Persephone said, with another mournful, yet somehow satisfied, sigh.

The goddess of grain dredged the name out of her memory. "Didn't they die out centuries ago? Can't remember what gods ended up taking them. Certainly not us. What are you doing visiting other underworlds? Or did they come here? Pillaging as usual, I suppose --"

"Not the _Visigoths_ ," Persephone interrupted her, annoyance cracking her languid façade. " _Modern_ people."

Demeter stared again. "Who?"

"Geniuses," Persephone said dreamily. "I've been watching them. They know that true beauty lies in darkness. All this time I've been so wrong, wanting to escape here, when this is the only place that really matters. This is the real truth of the world -- darkness and sadness and --"

Demeter had heard enough. "Nonsense. Your business is life and growth and flowers. Go wash off that silly makeup. I brought you your favorite chiton to wear --"

Persephone's chin came up. "I'm not going."

"Oh, yes, you most certainly _are_."

"You can't make me."

"I'm a much older goddess then you are, young lady. Now get up this instant."

"But _mother_ \--"

Demeter almost threatened to plunge the world into famine again; then she realized Persephone would probably like that idea. So instead she resorted to a higher authority. "Zeus said you would spend half the year here and half above. Do you want _him_ angry at you?"

"What can he do to me?" Persephone said defiantly, but there was a hint of fear in it.

Demeter smiled pleasantly. "Oh, I imagine he might talk Hades into redecorating. Something in pastels, perhaps. With sunflowers everywhere. And choruses of butterflies dancing all the time."

For a moment the two goddesses faced off. Then Persephone wailed, "I _hate_ you!" and fled the room.

Demeter sighed. _Please,_ she thought -- though who the thought was directed at, she could not have said -- _let this be just a phase. I'm not going through this every year for the next century._

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to get technical about it, Persephone's down below during the _summer_ , which is dry and infertile in Greece. (And some versions say she spends only four months down there.) But if I'm making Persephone a very bad modern goth, then I might as well go with the modern American interpretation of the myth, where she's gone for the winter and comes back in spring.


End file.
